


Storybook Romance (formerly Dancing Through Copenhagen)

by lizandletdie



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Monsters au, Supernatural AU - Freeform, nokken!Rumple, there's gonna be some smut here at some point, vila!belle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:04:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10096367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizandletdie/pseuds/lizandletdie
Summary: Belle is a vila who has decided to see the world, she makes it as far as Denmark where she encounters a strange man who plays the violin beautifully and wants absolutely nothing to do with her.Luckily, she's never been the sort to ignore a perfectly mysterious stranger.





	1. The Busker

**Author's Note:**

> So a bit of background, I've written about Vilas a bit before (see: Once Bitten) but jut a refresher course. Vilas are air spirits who look like beautiful women and who dance at crossroads. They occasionally take lovers, and can kill men via sex or dancing if they're in a bad mood and are indigenous to Eastern Europe. 
> 
> Nokken, which I have never written about before but always wanted to, are magical creatures that live in the water. They can resemble either a beautiful horse or a man who plays the violin. They'll occasionally teach this skill to mortals, or drown them. They tend to live in Sweden and Norway.
> 
> So what are a Vila and a Nokken doing in Denmark?

Belle stumbled into the streets on a high of attention. She’d milked that particular club for all it was worth, and it was time to move on. She knew of another bar a few streets over that she’d had good luck with the last few nights. Copenhagen so far was a highlight of her trip. She’d loved the older historic parts of the town, especially the open air art museum, but the specifics of her curse meant that she’d spent most of her nights so far in Vesterbro dancing with tourists and locals alike. 

The life of a vila suited her well now that she had adjusted to the curse. She’d always wanted to travel, and now that bars and nightclubs were so popular and her ability to travel so fast she was taking full advantage of the chance to get out of the Velebits. She was sure she could make it at least through Europe, Asia, and Africa before she’d have to work out some way to cross an ocean and that was good enough for now. So far she’d wound her way up through western Europe into Denmark, and in a few days or weeks (whenever she got bored) she would make her way further into Scandinavia and then across Russia into China. But for now, Copenhagen was offering her plenty to see and do and she was in no hurry to leave.

She was starting to get antsy around so many people when she’d not fed properly yet tonight, so she decided to take a shortcut to her next destination through a park. As she reached the center of the park, she felt a little tickle in the back of her neck drawing her forward. She recognized the feel of another magical being in the area, but it wasn’t one of her kind. She cast her eye around, trying to decide who it was and what they were but she wasn’t coming up with anything she was familiar with yet.

This was so frustrating. It had been ages since she’d met someone like herself, and even though she was sure this wasn’t another vila it was _someone_ and she wanted to get to know them. Belle closed her eyes and _felt_ for a moment – something felt strange, and if she’d follow her intuition she was sure she could identify it. It wasn’t the couple making out on the bench, although that was definitely a sensation that was tugging at her pleasantly, it wasn’t the three girls giggling as they raced through the park towards their destination, it wasn’t the older couple listening to the man playing violin...she felt a tug in her chest as soon as she noticed the man playing violin. There was something about _him_.

On the surface, he seemed entirely ordinary. He had perhaps a bit of gold in his brown eyes, and his hair was longish, but his fingers were moving across his violin in such a fluid manner she could hardly believe how fast and perfectly he was playing the music. There was also a power there that she couldn’t put her finger on. Something dark and a little bit dangerous, but beautiful, too. It was an unfamiliar sort of magic, but not entirely unlike the kind that Belle herself possessed.

Now that she’d sensed it, she was surprised nobody else could. Even without her intuition, nobody should be able to play the violin like that. It was hypnotic and so, so lovely. She had no clue at all what he was, but she couldn’t help herself as she sashayed into the circle of people around him and started dancing. She was a creature of air, and dancing was practically second nature. How could she resist being a part of something so lovely?

The busker barely glanced at her as she twirled and moved to the music. It was intoxicating, and the attention and energy she was drawing from the crowd fueled her so intensely that she had to focus to keep herself from floating, and even then there were times when her feet didn’t quite touch the ground. It had been _ages_ since she felt this alive, and the crowd was riveted to their performance. She didn’t even know how long they’d performed when he abruptly stopped and took a bow. Her feet stopped almost as soon as he did, and she glanced over to see him looking at her curiously and she held his gaze even as everyone around them shook off the spell, tossed whatever money they had on hand into his violin case, and left.

The stranger didn’t speak to her, instead he looked away and sat cross-legged on the ground to begin counting his money. How could he not speak to her? Her blood was running high, and he was a male – regardless of species he _should_ be drawn to her if the vampire she’d stumbled upon in Hungary was anything to go by. And she wanted to know him. He was new and interesting, and he played beautifully. She waited a few more minutes to see if he’d acknowledge her presence or existence, and when he didn’t she finally went and lurked next to him.

“I’m Belle,” she said at last. “You play beautifully.”

“Thank you,” he replied, turning back to her. “It’s a gift.”

She flashed him her most radiant smile, and he didn’t flinch. This was very unusual, and very interesting. So she was going to have to be blunt, apparently.

“What are you?” she asked him. His eyebrows shot straight up in an expression of surprise before he quickly schooled them back into indifference.

“Who says I’m anything special?”

“It’s been awhile since you’ve encountered someone like yourself, hasn’t it?” He didn’t respond right away, so she continued. “Men don’t play instruments like that – it was bewitching.”

The stranger finally grimaced and looked away.

“I should have known that dancing wasn’t human,” he replied at last. “And to answer your question, I’m a nokken.”

She’d never heard of that before, and it must have shown on her face because he gave her a smile that seemed to gloat in having this piece of information she didn’t.

“I’m not local,” she said by way of explanation. “I’m a vila, if that means anything to you.”

“A bit,” he replied, looking at her curiously now. He seemed a _little_ curious now, which was progress because she was simply dying to talk to him. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, dearie?”

“I wanted to travel.”

He smiled, but went back to collecting his belongings and didn’t offer any further conversation. It was like trying to get a story out of a wall, and to make matters worse she was starting to feel herself become agitated. She had done well at the last club she’d been at, but even with the attention she’d garnered dancing with him, she was still hungry. Of course, there were other ways to feed and it had been _so_ long since she’d indulged one.

“Would you like to have sex?” she asked him with a casualness earned through years of practice.

He froze and spun to face her. She’d had a lot of reactions to that question over the last hundred years but ‘terrified surprise’ was not a particularly normal one.

“You’re joking,” he said quickly and she couldn’t tell if he was asking her or reassuring himself.

“Not at all. I need to feed and I can’t kill you, can I?” He shook his head in response. “So it’s perfect! Do you need to be out here all night?”

“I – uhhh – no. I was actually...I was getting ready to go.”

“Do you have a place?” she asked him. “If you don’t, I know somewhere.”

Usually, when she indulged herself in picking up a man, she’d go back to their room but she had a small flat rented to store her few possessions and she didn’t dare assume that a strange man she met busking in front of a fountain would have a room anywhere nearby. But Belle had been doing this for a long time, and she could make do just about anywhere by now. She took a step towards him and he took a big step back, so she stopped in her tracks. She wanted him to take her up on her offer, but pushing was obviously not going to get her anywhere with this one. It was a pity, really, supernatural creatures were the best in bed.

“On second thought, don’t worry about it,” she said finally. “There’s a dance club up the road I wanted to see tonight. Maybe I’ll see you in the park sometime?”

“Perhaps,” he replied, having relaxed as much as he had before. “But I wouldn’t count too much on it.”

“It was nice to meet you, then,” she said, turning and walking away as coolly as she could. It was late, and she needed to feed regardless of what she _wanted_ to do. Still, she’d have time tomorrow to do some research. She’d never heard of a _nokken_ before, and she was desperately curious about them. She loved learning new things and meeting new people, it was why she’d chosen to travel. He was a mystery for her to uncover, and she liked that.

There was a splashing of water behind her that was her only clue as to the nature of her new acquaintance.


	2. Rumplestiltskin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, this fic is open for prompts.

Belle was agitated by the knowledge that there was another supernatural creature in the area and that she didn’t know who or what he was. He’d never even given her his name, which just made her more excited by the prospect of what he could be. He’d said he was a _nokken_ , not that that meant anything to her. The library was open at least, which gave her some options. Granted, she didn’t speak much Danish but there were computers there and Belle was sure she could figure at least something out.

It was so easy to find knowledge now. When she’d first been born it was an entirely different world where knowledge was limited to holy men and village elders and a young woman from a small village was limited in what she was supposed to learn. Her real education hadn’t begun until she’d died and become a vila. It had been an incredible sensation to have that kind of power, and once she’d gotten past her initial terror at having ‘fallen’ from the Lord’s grace she’d learned to love her new life and the freedom from the pressure of being so well behaved and the ability to wreak vengeance on the people who had wronged her in life had been a heady sensation.

Eventually, she found a book of Scandinavian fairy tales that had a mention of Nokken in the index, but it was in Danish and hers wasn’t entirely fluent. It had taken a good hour or so of time with an online translating program and a piece of notebook paper but eventually she’d gotten what she thought was a pretty good translation of the text, and what she read just intrigued her. It said they were native to Norway and Sweden, so what the hell he was doing in Denmark was beyond her. They were water spirits who played the fiddle and lured people into the water to drown. They could be defeated by calling their name, which would explain why he didn’t want to share it with her the night before. It just seemed like such a profoundly lonely life to her – to be entirely alone like that.

She folded her paper up and tucked it into her bag before she left the library. She waved at a man who stopped to stare at her from across the street and headed down to the water. She’d decided she wanted to go see the statue of the Little Mermaid today and then spend some time just visiting the local shops. She loved seeing the local color on her vacation, and she had a little money she’d kept from her performance at the fountain the night before so she could buy herself a little something pretty before her night out.

Gold wasn’t sure what to make of the strange woman once she’d left. She was definitely...forward. It had been a bit of a shock, and left him scrambling to come up with a response. At first he hadn’t even been sure that she was serious except that when he’d looked at her she hadn’t been smiling or teasing him. It was a peculiar feeling. He wasn’t used to being around others very often, and certainly never talking to them. At least not anymore –- there had been a time in his life that he’d been very involved in the lives of mortals, but those days were behind him. He didn’t even bother to drown people anymore, and certainly never took on an apprentice. No, his time these days was entirely taken up with this little fountain and his nightly performances.

He was feeling melancholy as night fell, the remembrances of times past doing nothing for his mood. As soon as his violin was out, his fingers were playing the opening notes to a particularly haunting ballad he’d known longer ago than he cared to admit or remember.

It was easy to get lost in the feel of the music as he played, and this particular song brought back so many memories. The music itself was dark and visceral, and it seemed to thrum in his blood as he let himself be lost in the music. He didn’t watch the crowd, but he could see them in his mind’s eye. He could see the transfixed looks on their faces, and the way they’d be watching him slack-jawed as though waiting for his command to toss themselves into the sea. He let the music swell to a crescendo, and dared a glance at the crowd. It was just as he’d imagined, with one caveat: the vila from the night before had joined him again, and he’d never seen anything quite as beautiful in his life. A vila’s dance with a nokken’s music was a sight to behold, and a rare one at that. If he’d been anyone else, he would have lost his place in the song but he didn’t need to pay too much attention to his work and he could watch her as he played.

Gold had lost track of time entirely – one song was bleeding into the next for him, and the vila seemed just as lost in the rhythm as he was. The magic in his fingertips kept his audience enraptured no matter where his mind was. She really was beautiful when she danced. Well, she was beautiful regardless but that was the nature of her curse, wasn’t it? She couldn’t help but to be beautiful. When she danced, though, there was a lightness to her that was lost when she was still.

Inevitably, the moment came when he had to stop his playing and take a bow. She joined him and there was a smattering of applause followed by coins being tossed into his violin case, and then they were alone at last.

“Back again, I see,” he said for want of anything less obvious to comment on.

“Well, it’s not everyday I run into someone like myself,” she replied with a flirtatious grin. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

He felt himself smile in spite of himself at her flirtation even though he still wasn’t planning to reciprocate it. It was just something new and different than he was used to, and when you were as old as he was you learned to enjoy novelty when it appeared.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be here again,” she said nonchalantly, dropping down to sit on the edge of his fountain. “Is this your home, then?”

His first instinct was to deny it, but then what was the point of that? There were only so many places in the city he could spend his time and she’d found him here twice.

“This is where I _stay_ ,” he said. “It’s not precisely a home of any sort, you understand.”

“I do,” she replied. “I’ve been traveling a long time myself, and it’s the furthest I’ve ever been from home.”

“Is it? Not a big traveler in your former life, then?”

She smiled sweetly (and, perhaps, a little sadly) and shook her head _no_ , and for a second he thought he saw the woman she’d been before she was cursed but then the vila was there again with her sultry confidence.

“I’m not sure if you remember, but peasant girls generally weren’t encouraged to leave their villages,” she said teasingly. “And even if I had left, the next three towns over weren’t much different than mine.”

He did remember, actually. Peasant girls had been his stock and trade up until quite recently (relatively speaking), although he didn’t think telling her about that would be the best idea. Besides, there had been one or two of them who had caught his eye at the time, though he’d never been much of one to seduce young virgins. He knew many of his kind who had accepted those sorts of trades for fiddle lessons, but he’d alway been pickier in his choice of company.

“I knew a few of them in my day,” he said at last. “I imagine most small villages are usually fairly similar even now, though I haven’t been through many in the last fifty years or so.”

“Is that when you came to Copenhagen?”

“Now, who told you I came here?”

“A book,” she replied a little bit saucily. “You’re no more local than I am.”

He almost couldn’t contain his delight at the idea of her tracking down a book on the population spread of different fae to figure out where he was from. The little vila hidden in the library stacks pouring over dusty tomes made a delightful picture in his mind.

“So what brought you here?” she asked when he didn’t answer her right away and he had to think for a moment to decide how to answer her. It wasn’t something he liked talking about particularly, and especially not with a near stranger on a public street.

“I could ask you the same,” he said. “Vilas aren’t precisely known for their wide global distribution.”

“Fair enough. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?”

She was teasing again, and she had her legs tucked up under herself and was smirking at him like she was sure he’d take her bait.

“Maybe next time,” he said. “It’s not a story for the city streets.”

“Suit yourself,” she said with a shrug. “It’s just been awhile since I had anyone to talk to about these things.”

He should correct her that she didn’t really have anyone to talk to _now_ , but couldn’t quite bring himself to do so. They weren’t friends – they were practically strangers and he had next to no desire to make _friends_ with anybody at all. She was amusing, though, and so far she’d been harmless. If she tried to turn her vila charm onto him then perhaps they could reevaluate, but so far he thought whatever she’d used had been unintentional and he wasn’t particularly susceptible to her in any event.

“I’d never thought a vila could want for company,” he said flippantly. “Isn’t that the nature of your curse?”

“Company and companionship are very different things, you know. The men I meet in clubs aren’t generally interested in conversation and it’s not like I can talk about curses with them.”

“I suppose not,” he said. “Don’t your sort take the occasional long term lover?”

“On occasion, but it’s hardly romantic. Just a few weeks of sex before releasing them back to their real lives. It’s fun, but it’s not a relationship and there’s not a whole lot of talking.”

“I imagine that does lose its luster after a while. Still, is there a rule that you’re not allowed to befriend your prey? Will a governing body of vilas revoke your license to practice?”

She giggled at his joke, covering her mouth demurely as she did. It was such a pretty laugh, and for the first time he felt a little pull towards her even though he was sure that she hadn’t intended for that. How curious.

“Nothing quite so dramatic,” she said once she’d stopped laughing. “It’s just hard to get the other party to focus for too long on anything you’re saying.”

That he could definitely see. She turned heads even when she didn’t mean to, and when she’d been dancing she had been positively magnetic. If she were to turn her attention towards a mortal then they must be completely entranced by her.

“Will you dance with me?” she asked him.

“Why?”

“It’s still night time,” she said with a shrug. “And I haven’t really fed yet.”

“Are the nightclubs closed this early?”

“No, but I’d rather stay here with you if you don’t mind. It gets boring to pick up strangers every single night, and I can hardly hear myself think in there.”

He probably shouldn’t agree. She could walk over to any bar in the city and get her fill off of some drunk who would never forget her, but she was different here and now than she had been the night before when she had wandered over from some random club. She was curious and open, and anyway it wasn’t as though he had any other plans. He finally nodded his assent and she smiled and leapt to her feet.

It was somehow surprising to have her suddenly in his personal space even though he’d been asked his permission for her to be there. It had been so long since someone had touched him that his hand felt alien when she took it, and he didn’t remember to put his hand on her waist until she’d placed hers on his shoulder. Belle was the one to lead, humming a strange little tune as they swayed and twirled next to the fountain. 

He could feel the energy of her as she tasted his attentions and fed herself from him. It was the strangest feeling he thought he’d ever felt, it wasn’t at all like she was draining something from him. Instead, it felt as though an electric current was flowing between them, something warm and exciting. It was like he was more alive with her there than he had been the day before, and he was so lost in that moment that he barely noticed when she began to speak.

“What was that?” he asked, shaking himself back to reality from whatever trance he’d been in.

“I asked what I should call you,” she said, not even phased by his inattention to her. “I know your real name is probably off limits, but I feel like I should call you something if we’re going to be friends.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t really thought about that at all. He never gave his name to anyone anymore, and it had been ages since anyone had asked. “It doesn’t really matter,” he said at last.

She looked at him intently and pulled her lower lip between her teeth as she seemed to think about it while they danced.

“You know, there’s a fairy story in Germany about an imp didn’t give away his name, either.”

“Is there?” He knew the story already, but she seemed so pleased with herself he couldn’t bear to take her fun away from her. “And you thought that you’d call me after him?”

“Well, I don’t have anything else to call you,” she replied. “And Rumplestiltskin is such a lovely name!”

He rolled his eyes and pulled her a little closer so he wouldn’t have to look at her proud little grin at her own cleverness. He really didn’t mind the name so much, though. He’d certainly been called worse.

“You don’t hate it?” she asked after a few seconds of silence. Her voice was right in his ear this time, and he didn’t like how nice it sounded when they were so close and her curse was acting so powerfully. At least she would leave soon, and he could go back to his normal routines.

“I don’t hate it,” he replied. “Besides, it’s only for a few weeks. I’ll survive.”

“Right,” she said, her voice suddenly devoid of the teasing note it had held only a moment earlier. “It’s just a few more weeks.”


	3. In the Court of the Troll King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Belle finds herself in a bad situation.

Belle was really enjoying Copenhagen so far. She was spending her days sightseeing and her evenings busking with Rumple and she was happy doing that. It was the most fun she’d had so far on her trip, and the most she thought she’d enjoyed herself in decades. He’d agreed to introduce her to some mermaids that evening before he would play, but that still left her the rest of the afternoon to tour museums. She was standing in her third one of the day when she realized something felt _off_.

You didn’t go through the things Belle had gone through without developing a sense for danger, and she was on high alert as she wandered the museum trying to figure out who or what was pinging her but she couldn’t sense anything through the crowds. It all sort of blended together even though she’d been able to sense Rumple a few nights before. Whatever was going on, the energy was too close to human for her to parse them apart. She wasn’t sure whether or not to stay in the museum or try to sneak out of it, but ultimately the decision was taken out of her hands when she felt something else nearby. This presence was dark and dangerous and distinctly _other_ – and there were two of them lurking outside the museum.

That wasn’t a welcome discovery at all. They were moving outside and it took her a moment to realize that they were patrolling. Whoever it was, they were trying to keep someone – likely her – inside. Which meant that she needed to get outside as fast as she could and find someplace safe to hide. She had defensive and offensive magics, but with this many humans around there was no way to perform any of them without exposing herself and risking a great many bad things. As unstructured as the various supernatural communities were, they all had strict rules against being caught by humans. In the old days, exposure meant burning and the whole group being chased out of their homes, and as a result it was a very serious infraction. The lightest sentence she’d ever heard of for exposure was death, and Belle had already died once already.

Whoever it was outside seemed to be focusing on patrolling the doorway, so if Belle could find another way out she may be able to slip past them and to safety (or at least to where she might be able to fight back. There weren’t any windows in the main part of the museum, but she hadn’t expected any because of the risk of burglary. If there would be any windows, they’d be in the front part of the museum where the gift shop and entrance were, but that whole area was too dangerous to escape from. As a last ditch effort, she darted into the ladies’ room and practically cried in relief. There was a thin, rectangular window high above the toilets.

She wasn’t going to have a lot of time to do this, if her stalkers didn’t circle back around here soon then somebody was going to walk into the restroom and catch her crawling through a window. It was something she never could have managed before she was cursed, but now it was almost nothing at all to balance herself on the pipes behind the toilet closest to the window. She was just tall enough to be able to reach the window, but it hadn’t occurred to her that it wouldn’t open. Of course it wasn’t going to be an opening window, it was a frosted glass window in a museum bathroom. She should have expected that.

The nice thing about being a vila was that she wasn’t necessarily vulnerable to the same things a human would be, and started hitting the window. Once she’d started, she didn’t dare stop. Someone was _going_ to hear her sooner or later, and time was of the essence. She had a large cocktail ring on that she’d picked up from a street vendor in London and she had never been more thankful for tacky jewelry in her life because a few hits with the ring finally shattered the window. She knocked out whatever loose glass she could before floating up high enough to wriggle through the window. Even as small (and invulnerable to the broken glass) as she was, it still took her longer than she’d have liked to crawl through the window and into a small side street next to the museum

She didn’t see anybody nearby, and her first instinct was to head for the main road and try to blend in, but her clothes were shredded from the glass. She wasn’t going to be blending in with anyone except maybe a car accident victim. She turned towards the back of the museum and started planning. She could head to the thin road that ran parallel to the water behind the museum and then turn away from the museum behind the neighboring buildings and make her way towards the sea. If she picked up a change of clothes somewhere along the way – or at least a long jacket – she stood a good chance of evading whoever was after her.

She was already behind the next building when she suddenly realized she wasn’t alone – somehow the pursuers had snuck up on her, or more alarmingly, there were more of them she hadn’t noticed. Belle turned to face the threat, and caught a glimpse of a creature not much larger than her with a long coat and a wide hat before suddenly everything went black.

 

Gold was rarely out this early in the evening, but he had promised to show Belle mermaids before he played for her to dance later that night. There was really only one place in the city where mermaids could be easily found, and it was underneath the Øresund Bridge which ran between Copenhagen and the city of Malmö, Sweden. The Copenhagen side was a tunnel, and the mermaids liked to frolic near the island of Saltholm which was in between the two cities and didn’t really have any people for them to worry about encountering. He’d planned to meet Belle here and take her over to the island using some small magic that he thought she might find impressive, but she was running late now.

He shifted his weight and looked towards the sunset to try to figure out how long he’d been waiting, but it had been ages since he’d been out during the daylight and he was out of practice. He wasn’t sure if he should go looking for her or continue waiting for her, but soon enough the decision was taken out of his hands when he heard a whispering nearby. Gold recognized the sound of a tomte when he heard one, and he had a sinking suspicion he knew why one would be here. He rapped on the wall nearest where he heard the voice to draw the wight’s attention.

“What brings you to the city, tomte?” he called out, waiting until the creature appeared to offer it a little bow. The tomte stood perhaps two feet tall, though Gold knew from experience they could change their size, and looked like an elderly man with a large beard. They tended to live on farms and assist with household chores, so seeing one in Copenhagen was a bit of a surprise.

“Good evening Sir Nokken,” the tomte said cheerfully. “I’ve been sent with a message for you.”

“And who might this message be from?”

“From the trolls, Sir Nokken. On the behalf of your lady friend.”

 _That_ was certainly not welcome news at all. _The trolls_ were the ruling family of Denmark, they kept the various creatures that lived in the country in line and ensured that the humans remained unaware of the other inhabitants. They were one of four troll families in the area, the other three taking care of Sweden, Iceland, and Norway. If Belle had come to the attention of the trolls, she had done something very stupid.

“To what do I owe the honor of a personal message from the trolls?” he asked the tomte warily.

“Your lady friend is being brought before the trolls, Sir Nokken. She’s accused of a crime most serious.”

“And that would be?”

“I cannot say. I merely come with a warning, Sir Nokken: if you value your presence in this city, you will stay away from the vila.”

“Thank you for your counsel,” Gold replied. “I’ll take it into consideration.”

The tomte didn’t seem to have much more interest in Gold now that his message had been delivered, and the creature wasted no time before he vanished back into the building.

As soon as the messenger had left, Gold took off for the king’s court. The court was near to the Frederiksberg Palace which was almost across the city, but Gold had a magic all his own and he dove into a fountain. The waterways were all connected, and he could travel them with ease. There was a waterfall he knew of in a park near the palace and it was a matter of moments to be there. Getting out of the connected pond without being noticed was a little more difficult but once he was on the street it didn’t take him long at all to find the entrance.

The actual way in was a hidden door in a knoll behind the palace that Gold knew well. It was where he had come when he first came to Denmark so that he could introduce himself and pay tribute, but it was also where trials were held when someone violated the laws of the land which apparently Belle had. Gold was racking his brain trying to figure out what she could possibly have done, but he honestly didn’t know enough of her daytime movements to even venture a guess.

The court itself was a circular room set deep beneath the entrance which was reached via a corkscrew path that overlooked the throne, so Gold could see Belle and the king long before he could hear them. She was standing in a small cell that had been hauled into the center of the room, and just from her body language he could see she was livid. There was no way this was going to end well, and he sprinted the last few hundred feet down and skidded to a stop just before the guards.

“Just answer the question,” the king said to Belle, clearly running low on patience.

“Answer mine first,” she shot back. “Why am I being detained?”

“All I need to know is your name so we can proceed,” the king replied, rolling his eyes in annoyance.

“May I be of some assistance, your majesty?” Gold called out which drew the eyes of the room to him. The king looked at him for a long moment before gesturing to the guards to let Gold pass. He tried to maintain composure while approaching, but as soon as he was next to Belle he began to wonder if he’d made a mistake. Her clothes were shredded and her eyes were flashing with anger even as he approached. He’d never seen a woman so angry, and he had seen a lot of angry women in his life.

“Welcome, Gold,” the king said. “I understand you know this creature?”

Gold was sure in that moment that the cell she was in must be magically insulated, because from the look Belle shot the king he was sure that she’d have incinerated the troll on the spot if she’d been able to.

“We’re familiar, yes,” Gold replied. “What has she been charged with?”

“First I need to get the formalities out of the way,” the king said testily. “I don’t suppose _you_ know what her name is?”

Gold looked at Belle who was already on the verge of squirming through the bars and killing everyone in the room and now he was going to have to betray her.

“Her name is Belle,” he said, taking a slight step back from her. Her anger seemed to have settled into a slow simmer now which somehow just made him more afraid of her.

“No it isn’t,” she snapped. “It’s _Biljana_.”

“Very good,” the king said. “Vila Biljana, you are being charged with threatening exposure by killing humans.”


	4. On the Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle gets herself into trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note I'm not sure when the next chapter is coming. Hurricane Harvey is in town and I signed up for a fic exchange so things might be a little slow for awhile. Please be patient and, as always, send me any prompts you have for this 'verse.

_“Very good,” the king said. “Vila Biljana, you are being charged with threatening exposure by killing humans.”_

“What?” Belle shrieked, suddenly sounding panicked.

Gold himself was taken aback at the severity of this particular accusation. He’d lived here for decades and had never heard of anyone being accused of anything that serious. Besides that, he’d never seen any indication of Belle killing anybody. She had always struck him as being extremely careful when she fed, and for the last week she’d been with him every single night.

“I take it you deny the charges?” the king asked.

“Yes, I deny them,” Belle replied. “I’ve never killed a human since I was turned. What reason would I have to start now?”

“You’ve been in our lands just under a month, correct?” the king asked, and she nodded. “And in that time we have had nine people die by draining in this country.”

Belle was looking completely terrified, and Gold felt a near uncontrollable urge to defend her though he had no idea how. This was...this was completely beyond his ability to defend, though. He had never heard of anyone violating these laws in the last hundred years at least – most of the habitual offenders had been disposed of or driven off and the younger ones never learned the habit. Gold was one of the few of his kind who had chosen to stop of his own accord rather than at the behest of the trolls to avoid exposure.

“When was the latest kill?” he asked the king at last.

“The most recent was three days ago,” the king replied. “Do you have some interest in this, Gold?”

“Three days ago she and I were together,” Gold said, hoping that would be a good enough answer because he very much didn’t want to have to explain his relationship to Belle here in the court. “Every night this week she’s come to my fountain and danced while I played. There have been countless witnesses.”

The king sat back in his throne and seemed to consider for a moment. Testimony was usually the only sort of evidence offered at these things, so Gold’s insistence that they had been together at the time of a murder would be considered heavily in her favor.

“Is there any evidence she did it besides the timing?” Gold asked. He was pushing it, but if there was anything else the king would have mentioned it before now and they both knew it.

“Did you come to Denmark with anyone else?” the king asked Belle.

“No,” she said. “I’ve been travelling alone since I left Croatia.”

The king narrowed his eyes and stared at her, and Belle seemed to be doing her very best to not look like a murderer, and all Gold could do was hope she was convincing. He’d tossed his fate in with hers, and if she was found guilty he wouldn’t be allowed to stay.

“And you swear you’ve been with her this week?” the king asked Gold.

“Every single night.”

“Very well,” the king said. “Gold, you’ve lived here peacefully for decades, and your word is good here. However, don’t think I’m unaware of why you came here and you both will be watched. Vila Biljana, you’re freed for now. Do not attempt to go underground or think that you can flee the country. We will continue to investigate these deaths, and if you are found to be responsible there shall be no mercy. For either of you. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Belle said. The correct answer would have been _yes, your highness_ but Gold thought she might have done it on purpose since she was still seething quietly in her cell.

“I understand, your highness,” Gold said, hoping that his deference would placate everyone enough to get them released in one piece. The king waited the space of a few heartbeats before snapping his fingers to the guards, who immediately went to the cell, pulled Belle out of it, and began dragging her up the passageway to the entrance.

 

By the time she was finally deposited outside, Belle was livid. They could have at least _apologized_ for dragging her out of a museum and making her ruin her dress, but instead the trolls just shoved her out the door and went back inside. The only thing keeping her from running back down and giving that king a piece of her mind was Rumple – no, what had the king called him? _Gold_ – appeared immediately after the guards left her, and then the door was shut behind him locking her out.

“What the hell was all that?” Belle snapped at Gold for lack of anyone else to yell at.

“ _That_ was me saving you from being killed,” he replied sharply. “Do you have any idea what kind of danger you were in?”

“I can handle myself, thank you. I’ve gotten this far all on my own!”

“Oh, you got yourself dragged in front of a tribunal all by yourself? Congratulations!”

“ _That_ was a misunderstanding and you know it!”

“It doesn’t matter what I know, what matters is that they were going to kill you!”

“You can’t kill what’s already dead!” she shot back angrily. She could feel the anger starting to coil and tangle inside of her, twisting into a knot of power she had to fight to keep inside. She had the capacity to cause him significant amounts of harm if she wasn’t careful, and as angry as she was she didn’t like the feeling of being out of control that came with the power. Her blood was running high and she could feel her power draining with every word they spoke.

Belle didn’t really care to continue their conversation, and in any event she needed to get a change of clothes and to get some energy into her before thing got really bad for everyone, so she spun on her heel and started to walk off.

“Where are you going?” he called after her.

“To get some new clothes and go to a nightclub,” she yelled back. “I need to get some energy, and we both know you’re not going to give it to me.”

He didn’t say anything to that, and she hoped he was speechless. There was a petty part of her that just wanted someone to be angry at and he was so convenient.

 

Her rental flat was tiny, barely larger than a closet with a twin mattress in it, but it was big enough for her meager belongings which was all she really needed it for. It was lucky she had a few spare changes of clothes, but she was going to need to replace this one at some point. She couldn’t wear the same thing all the time or people were going to start to get suspicious of her and she officially couldn’t afford to draw more than the bare minimum of attention anymore.

She was stuck in Copenhagen, too. The trolls had told her not to leave, so all she could do was hang around and wait for them to come kill her. Belle had never thought that she’d be in this position again. She’d promised herself not long after her death that no one would ever decide her fate for her again, she couldn’t be at the mercy of men again.

Her heart was still pounding with the magic inside her when she’d changed and brushed her hair, and she realized with a sinking heart that there was no way she could go out tonight. She was still too agitated and too powerful – and far too dangerous to the general population to risk it. She was already under suspicion, she couldn’t afford to make it worse now. It was the most frustrating feeling, like being trapped underwater and being unable to break through the ice. She wanted to claw at her skin until the power could explode out of her in one big wave.

Instead, she grabbed her purse off the mattress and escaped her flat to the streets below. There weren’t many options for her to let off steam safely, but she had a few things she could try and she would do whatever she needed to do in order to survive this. That was one thing dying had taught her, how to survive through any adversity. There was a safety in the worst having already happened, because nothing could ever be worse than being murdered.

 

Gold was precisely where Belle had suspected he’d be – outside his fountain playing violin for tips. There wasn’t a particularly large crowd yet, but even still her feet were calling for her to dance. She needed the energy, but she couldn’t trust herself not to lose control if she did it so instead she called.

Belle rarely _called_ intentionally. There wasn’t much need to do so when she was dancing, and in a nightclub she didn’t usually need to attempt to draw more attention to herself than necessary. Now, though, she needed him to stop what he was doing to notice her and this was the best way she had of that. There were people turning to look at her, but she didn’t pay them any attention. She had her target set, and he was the only safe person for her in the whole city.

At length, she heard his music start to slow and she could feel his attention turn towards her. He was looking at her now and she could see anger on his face even as he stopped playing. They locked eyes and she held his gaze as she released her call. With no further magic from either of them, the audience began to disperse slowly. She and Gold stayed, though. They were both of them still, like two stones in a river as people flowed around them and eventually left them alone.

“You used your magic on me,” he said coolly.

“It was the only way to get your attention.”

He was angry with her, but that was okay. She could deal with that – in fact, she kind of liked it.

“So at last the predator comes out,” he said with a bitter smile. “How intriguing.”

“I’m no more a predator than you are,” she shot back. “Tell me, how many did _you_ kill before the laws against it?”

He finally looked away, and she knew she’d scored a point.

“Why did you come back?” he asked her after a moment.

“I needed your help and to apologize,” she admitted. She wasn’t really angry with _him_ , she was angry in general and it wasn’t fair of her to have lashed out the way she had. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you earlier, you were only helping me. and I’m sorry.”

His fingers were twitching at his sides like he was keeping time with some secret music in his head, and after a little while he nodded to acknowledge her apology. This was so awkward, and she didn’t know how to really fix it. It had never been like this for her before, it was usually so simple to get a man to feed her and yet this was so hard.

“Is that it?” he asked suddenly. His mood wasn’t quite relaxed, and she realized he was still upset with her.

“What else do you want?”

For a moment he looked like he might actually tell her, but then he shook his head and turned away and when he looked back whatever it had been was gone.

“Nothing at all,” he replied. “So why don’t you tell me what brought you here?”

Belle couldn’t ask him. She couldn’t bring herself to do what she’d done and then come here and beg him for sex. It shouldn’t be such a big deal for her anymore, except now it _was_ and she didn’t want to think about what that meant.

“Kiss me?” she said instead, wishing she had been better able to control her curse and her temper. “I’m sorry to ask, I just need _something_.”

Her Rumple looked shocked, and she regretted the necessity of asking so much more now. What else could she even do, though? All her options were bad, this was simply the least worst one.

“You can’t just ask for that,” he replied, backing away like he’d done the first time they’d met.

“I can’t hurt you,” she said quickly. “And I wouldn’t if I could. I just can’t trust myself with a mortal right now.”

His expression changed again, growing harsher even as his body relaxed at this admission and she didn’t know that she liked this shift. She’d never seen this side of him before, and it was like a stranger had taken his place.

“Ah, that explains it,” he said, straightening up. “Alright, I suppose it won’t do to let you kill anyone now that I’ve vouched for your honor.”

And there it was, the thing she’d come here wanting – he would help her to control her curse for tonight so they could go on like normal. But that wasn’t good enough for her now. Something had shifted in this conversation, and an _understanding_ wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

“Forget it,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because he got a shocked look on his face and went silent. There was nothing else to say, she was tired of living like this and feeling every one of her hundred and fifty odd years of life in that moment. She’d seen the fall of empires and of her old way of life, but there were still aspects of the old ways that would sustain her if she let them.

She didn’t say goodbye, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she did. The important thing now was to find a crossroads before things got too far out of hand.


	5. Like Real People Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle comes clean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, I'm not really dead! Although I have deleted my Tumblr for reasons I won't get into, but I'm going to try to start writing more especially over the summer now that my life has finally slowed down into some semblance of normalcy. I do have a Tumblr account maintained under the lizandletdie username that you can use to send me any messages if you need me, and I also have a private secret Facebook account set up for fic updates and discussions so if you'd like in let me know that way.
> 
> I'm hoping to finish a couple of things soon and maybe get some original stuff published in the near future, so watch this space!

It didn’t take Gold as long as he’d thought it might to find her, once he listened. She was calling loudly, and it was strangely intoxicating to let himself be caught up in it. Eventually, he made his way to a cross street a few blocks west of his fountain where he found a gathering of a half dozen men watching her dance. It was always a pleasure to see the way she spun and twirled in the low light of the street lamps, and this time was no exception.

It began to dawn on him then that she’d never really _danced_ for him. He’d seen her dance, but never like this. She’d been holding back before, always careful not to draw too much attention or attract too much lust. But here, she was giving it her all and demanding that she be looked at and he wanted to look at her. Surely some of it must be the magic, but he was sure that there was also an aspect of it that was just her. He wanted to see _her_ in a way that he’d never wanted anything from anyone before. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself this sort of simple pleasure, so he watched her from the shadows as she used an ancient magic that he’d never experienced before. Perhaps she was enchanting him, but he couldn’t remember now why he’d been resisting her charms in the first place. Was it ever wrong to feel this sort of lightness no matter where it came from?

At length, he finally caught her eye and he could feel the moment that her attention shifted to him. He would have expected her to be angry still, but her energy didn’t feel angry and in spite of the fact he was sure she could cause him all sorts of pain, he wasn’t afraid as she smiled and beckoned him forward. The crowd was dissipating now, she must have released her hold on them when she’d begun calling for him. The thing that surprised him was how much he wanted her to continue calling to him. It was almost a relief to feel that loss of control and to simply trust her. He knew all the mechanisms of how her powers worked, but feeling them in action was still something magical and enchanting. Why had he resisted for so long?

She sauntered down a winding road and down a narrow row of stairs into an alley without even turning to look at him, like she knew he’d follow no matter where she went. Belle was the only other creature in the world when she came to a sudden stop and backed into a doorway where she was partially concealed in shadows. Her eyes flashed when he was in front of her, and as much as he knew what this was he just wanted to let her do it. 

Then somehow, he was kissing her, and he didn’t remember making the decision to do it. There was no way that he was in his right mind, and that should unnerve him but it just made him feel more free than he’d ever felt. He wanted to kiss her, and there was no need not to do it. He’d never been with another magical creature before, and it was so far beyond what he’d expected that he couldn’t do anything but experience the sensation. There was that same pleasant warmth that had accompanied dancing with her, but magnified tenfold now that they were well and truly _alone_.

All at once, Belle pushed him away and let out an inhuman shriek, and just like that the spell was shattered. He barely had time to move away before she started lashing out at the wall behind her, hitting it and screaming loud enough that he hoped the buildings around were empty, or at least that the residents were sound sleepers who would be scared to look out into the alley to see what was happening. She was elemental in her fury, and if he’d thought she’d been intimidating before in the Troll King’s court she was terrifying now. It was a display of raw fury and power that he’d only rarely seen in his life. And then as soon as it started, it was gone. The power receded into her and she crumpled to the ground, wrapping her arms around her knees and letting out a choked sob.

Gold wasn’t entirely sure what to make of any of this. He should be angry she’d used her powers on him or scared of her outburst, but somehow he was neither of those things. He’d been alive long enough to recognize the fear behind all of this, and something in him understood exactly why she’d done all of it.

“Are you alright?” he asked her from his position a few feet away, waiting until she nodded before approaching her and crouching down close enough to brush his fingers through her hair. The strange moonlight that always lit her from within had reached a crescendo as she raged and then finally faded until now she almost looked like a normal woman, and that more than anything else he’d seen in that alley unnerved him.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she said through a choked sob. “I’m just so, so tired.”

“I know, sweetheart,” he whispered, because somehow he did. He was tired, too. But there was no way for either of them to quit the lives they held – they were immortals, there was no way to escape their fates. They sat like that a little while with her crying on the ground and him petting her hair, but eventually he became aware of some lights beginning to flicker on and knew it was time to retreat. The neighbors must have mustered some courage. “Come on,” he said softly, climbing to his feet and pulling her with him. “We have to go.”

She didn’t resist him this time as he pulled her through the alley and towards the safety of the water.

 

Belle felt a thousand years old, and she was disappointed in herself because if she’d been in a better mood she’d have enjoyed the meandering path through the waterways he’d taken her on to finally emerge in the bay somewhere on the outskirts of the city. The water was too cool for a human to enjoy it, but Belle had to remind herself that she wasn’t human anymore and the coolness helped to ease some of her anger.

She leaned back in the water and let herself float, remembering hours spent as a girl in the summers simply floating in the lake near her home and imagining the whole wide world out there and dreaming of someday seeing it. She’d seen it now, but would she have taken the same bargain if she’d had a choice?

Rumple – _Gold_ – was still near to her. She could sense his presence even if she wasn’t touching him, but she was so starved for affection that she couldn’t resist reaching out for him. He took her hand and pulled her towards him, and that’s when she realized he had been floating with her. She tried to only cry silently as they floated together with her hand in his. She was watching the stars, and if she could keep from sobbing she could blame the moisture on her face from the sea water.

“I’m sorry for earlier,” she finally said when the silence at last became overwhelming. “I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

“You’re forgiven,” he replied. “It was an...interesting experience.”

“It’s still awful of me. I try not to do it, but sometimes it gets away from me.”

“Oh?”

Belle wasn’t sure how to respond to that. There was so much behind it, words she’d never spoken aloud and things that nobody living knew about. It was something she’d tried to leave behind her, and the further she got away from it the more it was overwhelming her.

“I don’t like to lose control like that,” she said at last. It was a nice compromise, enough of the truth as to not consume her.

“It honestly wasn’t unpleasant,” he replied in a soft, strange voice. “Almost like a dream where you’re not quite sure what’s real or what isn’t, you just know what you’re doing and that there’s a reason for it.”

“What were you like before you came here?” she asked. She needed a connection with him, with anybody, really. She didn’t have close confidants since she’d died, didn’t have anyone who cared about her really. _Lovers_ was such a misleading word, really – it implied so much more affection than she’d ever experienced from any of them.

“Oh, you know,” he said, suddenly flippant at her probing question. “I played music in ponds, lured maidens to their deaths...things like that.”

“Did you? Really?”

She risked a glance to him this time, only to see him watching her warily now. There was no reason to ask, except that she just wanted to reach out to him. He was just as solitary as she was, after all, if not moreso.

“Things were different back then, you know.” All the teasing was now gone from his voice and he sounded far away from her. “It wasn’t precisely a goal, but I have to play and back then mortals didn’t always learn to swim. Some things couldn’t be helped.”

“I’ve only killed one person,” she said before she could second guess the choice to say it. She wanted to stop the power it held over her to this day.

Even putting the words out there brought it all rushing back faster than she’d expected, though, and she couldn’t stop the sensations and memories from flooding her. The Shrovetide flowers, the sounds of music and laughing, the taste of cakes and drink as they prepared for fasting...she’d danced until her legs couldn’t carry her and the sounds of joy began to quiet into smaller conversations and a darker sort of revelry that she’d been too young and innocent to recognize. The feel of grass on her bare feet as he walked home in the dark, and the surge of adrenaline as she realized she was being followed.

She’d run, but strong hands had held her and she hadn’t yet been strong enough to fight. She’d scarcely known what was happening until it was too late, the hands on her neck had squeezed too hard for her to resist them and her final thoughts as a mortal woman had been anger that the last thing she’d ever see would be his face. Her murderer left her to lie on the riverbank, not even bothering to right her ruined skirts or cover her body before he stumbled off.

She physically recoiled at this memory, allowing herself to dip below the surface of the water just briefly before she surfaced, keeping her eyes clenched shut to keep her tears in and the seawater out. She didn’t want Rumple to see her cry, didn’t want to be crying. It was lifetimes ago, what did all of this really matter anymore? Her stomach clenched, and she forced her hands to stay relaxed so as to not betray the tension running through her.

They said that vilas were the spirits of silly women who had died, but Belle knew now that couldn’t be true. That was a story told to keep girls like her in line and give men a forbidden thrill. Vilas were women wronged, women who’d had their power stripped from them and so for some reason they had been brought back and given that same power. Or maybe they were women with unfinished business. Either way, Belle had awoken on the side of the riverbank to find that those who had known her in life no longer recognized her, and her earthly body now lay in a churchyard. She’d only visited it once before moving on, having nothing left for her in the village she’d spent her whole life in after completing her unfinished business.

“Who did you kill?” he asked her once her breathing had settled enough for her to speak again.

“I killed the man who murdered me.”


	6. In Some Sad Way I Already Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gold finally puts out.

Gold didn’t really know what to do or to say after that. He didn’t even know why she’d said it, except that it sounded like she’d had to. It all made a strange sort of sense now that he thought about it, she was a spirit which meant that she’d had to die and likely as a young woman. Of course, there had always been plenty of ways for a young woman to die – and a few hundred years ago there were so many more. He’d been leaning towards her dying of illness or possibly childbirth, but a violent death certainly wasn’t out of the question. She was from an area that had been between the Ottomans and the Eastern Empire, and it was always dangerous to be a peasant girl in any place.

She’d been silent herself for a long time, but her whole presence was less agitated now and less energetic. There was a stillness to her in the dark even as they drifted along with the waves. He held onto her hand to keep from losing her in the sea as they were both alone with their thoughts.

After a long while, he became aware of splashing nearby and looked up in time to see mermaids. The current had pulled them towards one of the bridges out of the city, and mermaids were playing in the shadows, racing cars and each other as they giggled and splashed. He straightened up in the water and pulled her towards him gently, waiting for her to straighten up and follow his gaze.

“Didn’t I promise you mermaids?” he whispered. He was almost afraid to spoil the moment, but she’d been so quiet for so long and he just wanted her to come back to herself. Besides, it was truly a majestic sight and she needed to see it.

“They’re beautiful,” she replied breathlessly. She was right, they were beautiful – dangerous, too, but not to either of them. Perhaps that was part of the beauty, though? The knowledge of the darkness that lurked just beneath the surface.

He could see the horizon begin to brighten up with the dawn, and the mermaids ceased their games and vanished beneath the waves. Soon there would be enough light for some passing motorist to see the two of them in the water. He turned to ask if she was ready to go, and was struck again with how very _lovely_ she looked. Perhaps it was the danger in her that drew him in, but _danger_ was a novel experience for him.

Gold decided not to second guess himself, and leaned in to kiss her. Her lips were salty with seawater and chilled from the cool night air, and eager to kiss him back. It had been ages since he’d kissed or been kissed in this way, and peasant girls _had_ always been his stock and trade…

Belle pulled away after a lingering moment and smiled, and he felt an odd warmth that was different from the way he usually responded to her overtures. This didn’t have the same sort of force behind it as when her curse was out in force, this was simply her.

“We should get someplace safe,” she said. “Someone will see us soon.”

“I can take us back to the city,” he replied. “It’s simple enough to get back to the fountain.”

“I have a place we can go, if you’d like,” she said with a little shrug. “Nothing special, but at least we could dry off.”

“I don’t need to get dry.” He was a water creature, after all, _dryness_ never really had any effect on him in either direction. But he did know that she hadn’t really been offering him a towel. There was more there and he probably should turn her down but the last twenty-four hours had been abysmal and honestly, what was he even putting her off for? “But I’ll come with you.”

 

Her 'place’ ended up being a single room in a boarding house, barely large enough for the bed that was in it. Still, it was better than a hostel and besides, the only place Gold could call his own was the fountain he lived in. This, at least, was private. 

Neither of them really knew what to do once they were both in the room and the door was shut behind them. He’d been so sure of himself and that this was a good choice when they were in the water, but here on dry land everything seemed different. He’d sworn off this sort of thing longer ago than he could even think about, long before the rules had been put into place to protect the community. He hadn’t _wanted_ to since…

He watched her as she moved through the room, drawing the curtains open just enough for the sunrise to peek through leaving a strange orange-pink cast to everything. There wasn’t much in the way of personal effects, he could see the shredded clothes she’d been wearing the day before laying on the floor by the bed where she’d discarded them. There wasn’t much else that seemed to be hers, and the anonymity of it was unsettling.

There was a squishing sound that drew his attention immediately back to where she stood, her skirt now in a puddle at her feet as she stripped off her shirt. His mouth went dry and his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, and she didn’t even seem to particularly notice or care as she draped a cheap silk kimono-style robe over her shoulders and tied it in the front.

“That’s much better,” she said more to herself than to him, really. It felt like he was an observer in that moment. This was her private space, and he felt like an intruder upon it. Still, though, he watched her as she hung her damp clothes on the back of a chair and then went to sit on the edge of the bed. She finally looked at him and smiled, and somehow everything was all right then.

“Do you want to sit?” she asked before scooting back so her back was against the wall and her legs were tucked beside her. She watched him as he joined her sitting on the bed, still unsure of what precisely he’d gotten himself into. “We don’t have to do anything, you know.” she continued. “This was your idea to begin with, I’m not going to use any of my tricks or anything on you.”

“No, it’s not that,” he replied.

“Then what is it?”

Of course she would ask that, but he hadn’t exactly discouraged her from it. He had his own secrets, though, and just because she’d shared hers didn’t mean he was ready to share his.

“Some other time,” he said at last. “It’s just been a long time since I’ve done...anything like this.”

“And it’s been a very long time since it meant anything for me to do it, so I guess we’re even.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that, to the implication that he _meant something_ to her – at least that sleeping with him would. Somehow he hadn’t quite realized that he meant anything to her, but then hadn’t she just told him her most deeply held secret?

“Can I ask you a question?” She said, suddenly closer to him than he'd thought. He nodded his assent, and she continued. “Why do you want to do this?”

There were a million reasons for that, but in the moment he felt them all slipping away from him. He missed the feeling of closeness that followed, he wanted to give her this thing he knew would ease some of her pain, he knew that she would leave soon and wanted as much of her as he could have while she remained, he longed for the comfort that she always had offered...and then it occurred to him that there really was only one good answer to the question: _her_. He wanted to be with _her_. He wanted to make love to _her._ He wanted to be a part of her pleasure and to experience her joy. This had only ever been about the two of them. 

“Because it’s you.”

Belle smiled at him again, almost shy now that she had him in her bed, and shifted to sit up on her knees. She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and licked her lips, examining his face long enough for him to almost start to feel self-conscious before she cupped his face lightly in her hands and leaned in to kiss him. 

This kiss felt different than the times she had kissed him before when her curse had always been there acting as a lure. It was still there, of course, as it always would be – but this time it was a neutral force in the room. It waited at the edges of his desire for her like a narcotic, not egging him on but intensifying the sensations. She would never be like the peasant girl she had been before, safe and without the menacing air that sometimes followed her, but he had grown to love the way the magic of her felt even in the times when it was a threat.

That was really what broke him. He’d known other women in his life, the more daring village girls would on occasion wander down to his pond eager for a clandestine rebellion and they’d been easy encounters with women who had never really known him nor had he cared to know them. It had been an amusing distraction, until it wasn’t anymore. And now here he was with a woman who did know him, and he wanted so much more.

He leaned forward, deepening their kiss until Belle wrapped her arms around his neck to hold herself up, which was his cue to hook his hands under her thighs and halfway flip her back onto the bed. She let out a little shriek followed by a pleased giggle as he quickly returned to kissing her. She was still cool to the touch from the water, but her skin warmed when he touched her. He wondered briefly if it felt good for her to be warmed or if she could tell the difference, but he still kissed his way down her neck to her shoulder, reveling in the taste and feel of her skin on his lips as he untied the belt of her robe and slid it open, revealing her undergarments.

Belle pressed a kiss to the side of his head as he nipped at her neck, and it was all the incentive he needed to keep going. He dragged his tongue along her collarbone and trailed his fingers along the dip of her waist as he went. He was so absorbed in her body and her reactions that he didn’t immediately notice she’d begun taking off his shirt. When he pulled away to look at her, she had a brilliant smile that just made him regret waiting so long to agree to this.

Once she had succeeded in unbuttoning his shirt, she shoved it off his shoulders and he quickly removed it and tossed it aside before contemplating her relative state of undress. The lower garments he was sure he could figure out, but the item on her chest was beyond his experience. A corset he could manage easily, but he wasn’t quite sure what to do with this. He slipped a finger under the strap over her shoulder and pulled it away from her body, testing the elasticity and feel of it. He lowered it back to her body before letting it fall away. She took some pity on him, sitting up enough to let the robe fall off her shoulders before reaching behind herself and doing some small magic to make the garment fall away, exposing her breasts. From that moment, it was all over.

He threaded his fingers through her hair and kissed her again, savoring her taste as he leaned her back into the pillows. She wriggled out of the rest of her undergarments and set about removing his trousers as his free hand kneaded her breast. Her nipples were hard either from arousal or the cold, but either way he couldn’t resist teasing one with his fingers before breaking the kiss long enough to bring his mouth to the other one. She arched into his body and let out a little moan, and he had to have her. 

She’d already unbuttoned his trousers, so it was an easy job to remove them and return to her welcoming arms. He lined himself up with her entrance and thrust into her in one long, even stroke. Belle cried out and buried her face in his neck, even as her legs wrapped around his hips and her hands clung to his shoulders. For the first time during their encounter, he could feel her curse beginning to curl around them. It was intoxicating again, curling into his brain and making him want to please her forever.

As he thrust into her, she clung to him tighter and tighter, until eventually he was simply rocking against her. It was perfect, and he never wanted it to end. Too soon, her panting reached a high pitch and she let out another strangled moan as her body convulsed with pleasure beneath him, drawing him over the edge with her.

They lay there for a long moment with him not wanting to disengage, but not sure he had the energy in him to go again before he finally collapsed next to her. She was clearly feeling better, already curling around him and stroking his chest even as he held her. This couldn’t be the last time, it just couldn’t. He’d never felt like this before, never felt so wanted and so wanting at the same time. He leaned over to kiss her again, just letting it stoke his desire for her even more. She’d said that it meant something with him, and he was only just now realizing how badly he needed to mean _something_ to her.


	7. That Which Lurks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot begins to thicken!

Belle wasn’t really sure how long they went on for, but by the time they were finally tangled together in her bed it was late afternoon. She couldn’t say she felt _satisfied_ , because sex wasn’t satisfying to her anymore, if it ever had been. At best, it was like scratching a mosquito bite – the best you could hope for was to forget the itch was there for a little while. Still, she felt content at least, which was a novel feeling for her. It truly was different with other immortals than with humans, it was better and less complicated. Of course, the level of complication always depended on the individual she was doing it with, too.

She sighed, and tried to calm the restlessness that had already overcome her. Things were good here right now, and she needed to focus on that. Everything outside of that bedroom was up in the air – someone was killing mortals and she was poised to take the fall for it, and she was now trapped in the city with no friends save Rumple – but in here she was safe and if she wasn’t loved, at least she was being held lovingly by someone who cared if she existed. It had been an eternity since she’d had anything resembling that, or at least it felt like it. This was nice, and she intended to focus on it as long as she possibly could.

For his part, Rumple seemed even more agitated than before, although she didn’t think it was in a bad way. He kept touching her, running his fingers down her arms and across her chest, adjusting her hair and toying with her fingers. She couldn’t help but enjoy his attention, though. She wasn’t intentionally doing anything to call to him, and yet here he was all the same.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked at last. He seemed to want this connection, and strangely enough, so did she this time.

“Nothing in particular,” he said, not quite meeting her eye. “What about you? Anything on your mind?”

She was thinking too much in general. She couldn’t do anything about the charges or any of the thousand other wrongs she’d endured in her life and afterlife, but for right now she had someone in her bed and for the first time in a long time she almost felt something for a man. It was a nice feeling, and she didn’t want to waste it.

“Nothing worth mentioning.” She rolled over toward him to study his face. His smile faltered slightly but picked back up easily when she smiled at him. He was so intriguing to look at, and she wasn’t sure he really knew it. Or maybe he did – maybe if she ever got out of Copenhagen and made it up to Norway she’d find ponds full of creatures exactly like him, the same way the other vilas she’d known since her death had all been lovely.

Belle wasn’t demure enough to pretend like she didn’t know she, too, was beautiful. When she’d been alive she had been pretty enough, but not like this. By now, she didn’t even particularly care about it anymore. It was a meaningless thing, nothing she’d done or earned – or even something passed on from her parents – it was an ancient magic that her kind used as a tool to get what they wanted like an angler fish would use a lure. Did it work the same way for him?

“What brought you to the city?” she asked instead, because it was a relatively tame question in comparison.

“At a certain point I couldn’t avoid them anymore,” he replied. “The world was growing up and it was becoming harder to survive using the old ways.”

“I meant why did you come to _this_ city. Why Copenhagen? Why not Stockholm or Oslo, or a city nearer to wherever you were from originally?”

His hands stilled where they had been playing with her fingers absently, and his eyes darted around the room like he was looking for an answer, and she wished she could give him a way out but she very much wanted an answer, she wanted to know more of him.

“It was time for a change,” he said at last. “There was nothing left for me there.”

She was about to press the issue, but there was a noise outside her window that instantly had her on high alert. It was the sound of a footstep or something solid on bricks, and it was very, very close – and Belle’s flat was on the second story of the building.

Rumple heard it too, sitting bolt upright in the bed and looking directly at the window. He was out of the bed and across the room in the blink of an eye, but she quickly joined him looking outside for whatever could have possibly caused that noise. There was nothing visible in the street below or anywhere nearby that could have possibly made the scuffing noise, and it left her extremely unsettled.

“What was that?” she asked him, hoping he’d seen something in the split second it had taken her to join him.

“I don’t know. Maybe a tomte or a gnome.”

“Maybe. But why would a tomte be outside my window?”

He shrugged halfheartedly and she knew that he didn’t really have much more knowledge at this point than she did. It was such an unnerving thought. Who knew how long they’d been watched, or who had even been doing it? Regardless, she was completely no longer in the mood for post-coital cuddling.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, pulling him away from the window.

“Of course,” he replied, following her back towards the bed. She began digging through her things, looking for something dry to wear. She was basically down to one serviceable outfit.

“God, all my clothes are ruined. I’m going to have to go shopping later,” she said more to herself than to him.

“Have you been to the bazaar yet?” he asked as he dressed himself.

“The bazaar?”

“It’s a local market for...our sort.” He paused and his eyes flicked to her before quickly darting to the bed and she knew then there was some catch to all of this. “It is run by the trolls, though.”

And there it was.

“No, absolutely not,” she replied. “I don’t want anything else to do with them.”

“I’m not going to make you go,” he said. “But I don’t think you really understand exactly how much power they wield here.”

“I know exactly what kind of power they have. This isn’t the first new place I’ve ever been to. Do you think they really work so very differently from the vampires or the dragons or any of the other ruling families in any other region? They’re all just bullies.”

“I’m not saying that. But I am saying that it can’t hurt your case to be seen by someone besides me on a regular basis, especially if these deaths continue.”

He had a point, but she didn’t really like it. Still, spending the evening shopping was a good deal better than being put into a cell and would hopefully prove the same thing.

“Come on,” he continued when she didn’t respond right away. “I know you’ll love it.”

Belle didn’t like to admit it, but the subterranean lair of the troll king was actually incredibly interesting when she wasn’t shackled or locked in a cage. Aside from a touchy moment where she thought one of the guards might have recognized her, but whether he did or not he let them through. Rumple led her down a different way than she’d been taken before, but she honestly wasn’t sure where exactly she’d been taken before. The whole place was like a maze, but somehow the ramps and tunnels gave way to a wide open space lined wall to wall with stalls.

She’d seen similar things before, but this was still spectacular. There were all sorts of things for sale, and people everywhere. She recognized mostly locals – various trolls, goblins, and wights – but she recognized a few other travelers easily. There was one man moving through the crowd who instantly caught her eye, with colorful garb that instantly identified him as a djinn. Another woman would have blended in anywhere with chic sunglasses and a headscarf, until Belle noticed a telltale movement beneath the fabric and a snake poked its head out only to be brushed back behind the cloth. It was so easy for her to forget how angry she was when she saw all of this.

“You were right,” she said to Rumple. “I do like this.”

“I thought you might, just about anything you could imagine can be bought here somewhere.”

“We’ll see about that, I have a very active imagination, you know.”

He smiled shyly at her and her heart felt a little lighter in spite of herself. She wanted to keep being annoyed, but her mood was lifting anyway. It was going to be a good day, she had new people to see, hundreds of stalls to examine, and no need to hide her true self for the entire duration of the trip. Even if she hadn’t needed to buy clothes, it would still be worth it just to look around at all the things.

She hadn’t expected to see such a wide variety of clothes designed to accommodate different needs, and that had been a fascinating surprise. Things with pockets in the back that wings could be tucked into to hold them down and out of the way, clothes with an extreme amount of stretch to help shape changers not ruin their clothes, non-corporeal items for spirits – she even saw a booth selling special sunglasses like the one the gorgon was wearing that would prevent those whose gaze was dangerous from causing any harm. It was absolutely delightful.

Finally, they located a stall selling gossamer skirts that would move nicely when she danced. She’d still need to find shirts, but for now she was contented with looking at the skirts.

“What do you think of this?” she asked Rumple, more to bring him in than because she thought he’d have any real opinions on the topic. She turned to face him and instantly felt skin start to crawl at the sight that greeted her.

“What’s wrong?” he said, turning to see what the matter was.

“Nothing,” she replied, going back to her skirts. “I just thought I saw something, but I was wrong.”

“What was it?”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. I think I’ll get two of these skirts.”

He nodded, but she could tell he didn’t want to let it go even though he wasn’t going to force the issue, at least not in public. She wasn’t really sure what exactly she could say, though. It was a silly thing, but she’d seen a small group of vampires in the crowd, distinctive with their parasols and long gloves to protect their skin from any hint of sunlight that might sneak through into the underground marketplace. She’d had enough of an experience with vampires to last her for a long time yet.

 

The shadow was moving through the marketplace unnoticed by his quarry. He’d been trailing her unseen for hours now, waiting for his time to strike. She was alone now, having broken away from her male companion with a kiss on the cheek and a wave as she continued through the streets, occasionally stopping to look in a window as she strolled.

He was so hungry that it made him weaker, and he would need his strength for the next part of his plan. The sun was going down, and soon enough she would be alone. Weakened as he was, he was still stronger than her and he would have surprise on his side. She had no idea what followed her, or even that she was being followed.

She would be home soon, where there would be privacy to do as he wanted – as he _needed_. It was just a matter of time now, he simply had to wait.


End file.
